OAKLAND — BART has agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a wrongful death suit brought by the family of a contractor who was struck and killed by a BART train in 2013, according to court documents the agency released Tuesday.

Fair Oaks resident Laurence Daniels was out measuring a dip in the tracks between the Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill stations on Oct. 19, 2013, alongside BART employee and Hayward resident Christopher Sheppard, when they were killed. BART workers had gone on strike the day before, and the agency was preparing to offer limited service from the East Bay to San Francisco during the labor action.

The trainee’s supervisor was not sitting in the train control cabin with the trainee at the time, and the CPUC’s report found evidence that the supervisor was sending text messages and making phone calls throughout the day, including a text message sent just one minute before the train struck the two men.

Attorney Markus Willoughby, who represented Daniels’ family, declined to comment on the settlement and requested privacy for the family.

The tragic accident is becoming increasingly costly for the agency. An earlier investigation by Cal-OSHA, the state’s top safety agency, resulted in $210,000 in fines in 2014, which BART is appealing. The CPUC has said it could impose fines of $500 to $50,000 per day for each offense deemed to be an ongoing violation, though BART is contesting the regulatory agency’s findings.

The two state investigations and an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board emphasized the inherent danger in a procedure called “simple approval,” which the workers were using that day to access the tracks. The procedure allowed workers to operate within a certain distance of the tracks and made workers responsible for their own safety. Under the procedure, the workers should have designated a member of their team to watch for passing trains, but that didn’t happen the day Daniels and Sheppard were killed.

BART has since eliminated the procedure, and the agency now requires all workers to request a “work area clearance,” which prevents trains from entering areas where workers are present. The agency also requires three-way communication between workers, the train control center and train operators, reduced speeds near work zones and has invested $4 million in physical safety barriers, among other changes, said BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost.

“There is nothing more important than safety and the safety of our employees,” she said.

Erin Baldassari covers transportation, the Bay Area's housing shortage and breaking news. She served on the East Bay Times' 2017 Pulitzer Prize winning team for its coverage of the Ghost Ship fire. But most of all, she cares deeply about local news and hopes you do, too. If you'd like to support local journalism, please subscribe today.